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Brazil’s Rousseff narrowly wins re-election, faces divided nation

Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff says her first task will be to seek reconciliation and to build bridges to those who didn’t vote for her.

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Brazil's current president Dilma Rousseff narrowly won another four year term in Sunday's elections. She faces a divided country and economic woes.(Newsy)

By Brad BrooksThe Associated Press

Mon., Oct. 27, 2014

RIO DE JANEIRO—Brazil’s re-elected leader Dilma Rousseff on Monday faced a house divided after a bitterly fought election that ended with the narrowest presidential win since the nation’s return to democracy three decades ago.

In her victory speech, Rousseff said her first task would be to seek reconciliation and to build bridges to those who didn’t vote for her.

“This president is willing to dialogue and that’s the first promise of my second term, to have a dialogue,” she said before cheering supporters in Brasilia.

But what’s not clear is how far the famously stubborn Rousseff will reach out, or to what extent a highly fragmented opposition and a Congress that now has 28 parties wants to work with her.

“We’ve never seen an election that’s been this divisive,” said Paulo Sotero, director of the Brazil Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. “The things said during the campaign, by both sides, will make it very difficult for the nation to come together quickly.”

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Rousseff has steep challenges on both the economic and political fronts.

“This president is willing to dialogue and that’s the first promise of my second term, to have a dialogue,” re-elected Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said in her victory speech in Brasilia. (EVARISTO SAEVARISTO / AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

Brazil’s economy fell into technical recession in August. It faces the internal pressure of lessening consumer demand and the external nightmare of China’s growth slowing faster than expected. Brazil’s economic expansion in the past decade was built on the spending of a newly minted middle class and the voracious Chinese appetite for commodities like iron ore and soy.

Massive offshore oil finds in recent years were called Brazil’s lottery ticket and its “passport” to developed-nation status by former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. But state-run oil company Petrobras hasn’t made good on its potential of tapping the deep-water riches. Many blame Rousseff’s interventions in the oil firm, such as forcing it to keep gasoline at a cheap price to battle inflation, as hamstringing its ability to grow.

Now, Petrobras is at the centre of a massive kickback scheme. A convicted money launderer who is co-operating with federal investigators in exchange for a lighter sentence said, but offered no proof, that the Workers’ Party benefitted from the scheme and that Rousseff had direct knowledge of it. She has angrily denied that.

The tough economic scenario, the political fallout from the scandal, the divided election and the ever-present demands of the middle class — that public services be greatly improved in return for the heavy tax burden they pay — means Rousseff’s road ahead will be bumpy.

“The government is going to have less capacity to deliver what the people are asking for in terms of better public services,” Sotero said. “The political fighting and fiscal problems paint the picture of a government that will have less to spend.”

Maria Socorro, a 23-year-old nanny in Rio, said she voted for Rousseff, but would hold her accountable for making good on her promises to protect the poor and turn Brazil’s economy around.

“They’ve got to show that they’ll push the country forward,” she said. “Success is the best way to heal the divide this election created.”

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